3 Reasons to Blame Yourself First

"If you don’t own something, you don’t have control over it…"

There is no benefit in ignoring your own contribution to a problem. If you had something to do with it, I promise that other people know. But even aside from using ‘morals’ as a motivator… owning up to your part of a problem is really to your benefit.

We all realize that blame is an issue that only comes up when things go wrong. We naturally tend to use blame in those moments because it gives us comfort… why? Because when we do, we manage to trick ourselves into thinking that we’ve actually done something productive.

Handling issues that way is really self-defeating though. For one thing, you can end up with a serious misunderstanding of what really caused the problem. Without an accurate perspective of what’s wrong, finding a solution becomes unnecessarily difficult. And if you let problems sit for too long without a proper diagnosis, finding a solution can end up being impossible. That’s especially dangerous if the problem stems from you… aside from just prolonging the issue, you are allowing a negative behavior to become normal.

Blaming is especially counter-productive when it comes to situations that need to be resolved. By blaming other people for a major issue that you’re responsible for, you put yourself in a very vulnerable position. You will end up with the wrong person taking a careless approach to fix an issue that they do not feel responsible for.

There can be a number of ways to avoid that, but an easy place to start is by looking at yourself first. Make that a habit, and there are a few benefits that you’ll learn to appreciate.

1) Control

If it’s your fault, it’s your responsibility. That means you get to be in control of how & when that ‘thing’ gets fixed. When something goes terribly wrong there is only one thing worse than not knowing how to fix it: when the person in charge of fixing it, doesn’t care about it.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t trust people to help you solve problems. We’ll never be able to tackle the world on our own, and we will always need people we can depend on. But there is a certain level of comfort that comes from knowing that you are behind the wheel when it matters. Don’t avoid assigning responsibility when necessary, but remember to take ownership of what’s yours when you can.

2) Effective leadership

By demonstrating accountability in yourself, you create confidence in the people who are accountable to you. Now, this is more than an Alexander The Great lesson about fighting alongside your troops. Yes, it’s difficult to refuse a task that your boss has done 100 times himself… but this point is more about getting people to listen in the first place.

If you have visibly fallen short in front of your team, but make excuses for yourself… they will be holding on to their own criticism of you, and it will keep them from taking your coaching seriously.

It’s very difficult to take advice from someone who doesn’t follow their own. We know this… but it’s important to see how that can be applied in a general sense. When you own up, and then adjust to your mistake… you demonstrate to your team how you want them to respond to criticism. Not only that, but you can effectively create a culture of consistent improvement. By making the statement that, “no one on this team is perfect”… you subliminally give everyone the permission to work on their deficiencies instead of ignoring/hiding them.

3) Perfect your craft

Even when it really isn’t your fault… training yourself to take a long, hard look at your own performance will shed light on exactly how you can improve. There’s no doubt that you need to celebrate your strengths as well. But if we don’t know where we’re falling short, we have no way of knowing what areas need attention. So when problems come up.. exploit the opportunity to shine the spotlight on yourself. Once you’re assured that the problem it isn’t your ‘thing’ to own, take advantage of this chance to grow.

So, be honest with yourself… maybe you did just miss the shot, and it wasn’t a bad set-up from your teammate. Maybe you should have followed up on that email (where 12 people were copied) because it’s your project. Maybe your kid is constantly late to class because they see how little you care about punctuality yourself. Whatever the issue may be, take control… blame yourself now, so that you can thank yourself later.

Full Article: https://medium.com/@sammyshabib/3-reasons-to-blame-yourself-first-e88e50800a1a

Shabib, S. (2019, January 18). 3 reasons to blame yourself first. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@sammyshabib/3-reasons-to-blame-yourself-first-e88e50800a1a